Lopez Villaveiran Paula MD 2

ABSTRACT Fiction has always made readers to explore new horizons and share experiences with the rest of the world. My dissertation addresses the question of how literacy and reading are essential to an inmate's rehabilitation. The current policy of banning certain books in prison prompts people to consider the act of reading as a privilege for prisoners and a menace for the system. Bearing in mind the cultural, political and social aspects such as mass incarceration in the United States, I focus on the analysis of the novel Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman and the series by Netflix based on the same text, together with other articles and publications on related topics taken from reliable think tanks such as the Cato Institute, which provides information on prison conditions, or neuroscience articles, which give value to the question of adaptation and reflective reading. Piper Kerman served thirteen months at FCI Danbury, a minimum security prison located in Connecticut for her involvement in money laundering and drug trafficking crime. The account of her confinement makes us realize that among all the projects carried out in prison, education and reading programmes are almost nonexistent, a fact which contrasts with the Netflix series based on the same novel where inmates make a great use of the library and quotes from novels are common in their conversations. Studies show that receiving correctional education reduces rates in recidivism resulting in a 43% lower chances of recidivating if the inmate participates in an education programme. However, surveys show that the correlation between experience inside prison and recidivating does not undermine those rates in recidivism. Reading programmes should be complementary of education ones as this activity implies reflection, which is a response to experience as stated by Boud, Keoghand and Walke in 1985, and Keith Oatley in 2006, and also makes people more empathic providing them with problem solving skills. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am thankful to the Villaveirán family who a hundred years ago were able to bring together the activity of reading and the forging of iron in their blacksmith’s. They were and still are my role models. 3 CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 5 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 7 2.1 The American criminal justice system 8 2.2 Education programmes 9 2.3 Ethnicity, poverty and age 10 2.4 Incarcerated women 11 2.5 Reading can make a difference 13 3. MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY 16 4. DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS 20 4.1 A discussion of Orange Is the New Black 21 4.2 The impact of books and reading in prison 25 4.3 Banning books in prison 29 4.4 Reflection, reading and recidivism 30 5. CONCLUSION AND FURTHER LINES OF RESEARCH 33 6. REFERENCES 36 4 1. INTRODUCTION The acclaimed series by Netflix Orange Is The New Black (OITNB), based on the novel with the same title written by Piper Kerman, has opened a window through which viewers and readers are shown how female inmates strive for a life in American prisons. The author of the novel and the main character in the series was sentenced to fifteen months for a drug smuggling crime and after her release she wrote and published her experience behind bars. An outstanding element in both the series and the novel soon catches the attention of viewers and readers: reading books seems to be a key and controversial issue while people are incarcerated. This is the starting point of this MA dissertation. The main objective of this study arises after a close reading of the novel reading of the novel: to identify whether literacy and reading are essential to an inmate's rehabilitation and whether the act of reading books might also be considered a privilege or even a menace for the system. In order to determine if there are any statistically significant behaviour differences between those inmates who have spent time in prison enrolled in a reading programme and those who have not, a range of research questions will be suggested: - Do education programmes implemented in American Prisons have an impact on prisoner’s behaviour? - Can we establish a correlation between enrolment in reading programmes and more successful rehabilitation of inmates?" - Are all book-restriction policies in US prisons reasonably justified? In light of the above questions, there arise the following formulated hypotheses: - Inmates who spend time reading are more likely to succeed when they are released from prison. - Some prison book ban policies in US federal and state prisons are not reasonably justified. 5 - Prisoners’ participation in education programs positively correlates with better prisoners’ behaviour. This is an innovative study, which derives from the analysis of the novel OITNB and how education and reading in particular appear as key elements showing changes of behaviour between those inmates in the series who have access to literacy programmes and the library and those inmates described in the novel, where access to education and reading seems inadequate. Thus, this study will serve as complementary to previous studies and research carried out to establish a relationship between low rates in recidivism associated to those inmates who have participated in education programmes while incarcerated and those who have not. Therefore, this study will focus on the importance of reading and their related features such as reflection and creativity and the importance of the development of this skill, which might be considered a privilege, a necessity or a threat for the system. It is a study, written ten years after the publication of the novel OITNB, and seven years after the release of the acclaimed series’ first episode based on the novel. It was the movie format the one that drew the attention of a great amount of viewers, who immediately asked for more seasons, extending the impact of the novel, well beyond Kerman’s initial expectations and putting life in American prisons at the heart of the public debate. The series release coincided in time with the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s implementation of a ban that forced incarcerated people in New York state prisons to receive only some selected titles of books. This was a measure that eventually spread to the rest of the states and federal prisons. This study is aimed to analyse the effects of reading on inmates during and after serving prison time. It is part of English studies and it is relevant as it tries to link the analysis of a novel and a Netflix series to previous studies related to education in prison, adaptation of life behind bars, recidivism and its reasons, neuroscience and actual experiences of inmates who considered reading a weapon to set people free. 6 The main sections in this study are organised as follows: - Literature Review: it is divided into subsections and it is aimed at providing a thoughtful, thorough, and critical review on previous research on the different angles of this topic. - Materials and methodology: the research design follows a cultural studies approach, since it focuses on the political dynamics of a contemporary issue. A synchronic analysis of primary and secondary sources is carried out with the novel and the series as primary sources together with official reports and reliable articles. - Discussion and findings: this is the most outstanding section as it deals with the analysis of those sources of information taken into account in this study and how they are relevant to draw conclusions and answer the research questions and hypotheses. An autobiographical evidence from the point of view of Piper Kerman, author of the novel OITNB marks the starting point. This is followed by an introduction on the American criminal justice system, education programmes in prison and incarceration forms of punishment and rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses. In order to create an association between those actual experiences and the need of a programme which enhances literature as its main goal, studies and research on neuroscience and reading are presented. This section ends with a discussion of how reading and literature are associated with reflection and adaptation and the importance of reflection and reading in order to avoid recidivism. - Conclusion and lines for future research: it summarises and explains the main results of the study, the final idea after discussing findings and it is intended to round of the study with possible new lines for future studies. - References: a list of documents, books, and links classified by author which have been taken into account to carry out the work. 7 2. LITERATURE REVIEW Education and literacy in prison are among the most significant current discussions due to the problem of mass incarceration in the United States. It is believed that the implementation of education and reading programmes might change inmates’ behaviour while they are serving a sentence in prison and after their release in the outside world. How society can prevent some people from going to prison and the tools to successfully achieve a release with low rates of recidivism is one of the most hotly debated issues nowadays. We shall review some of the available literature in the following sections. 2.1 The American criminal justice system The American criminal justice system does not have only one type of institution but a range of different buildings spread around the country. The country holds 2,3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, 80 Indian Country jails, military prisons, immigration detention and civil commitment centers and state psychiatric hospitals (Bard Prison Initiative, 2019). The difference between federal prisons and state prisons relies on the fact that the former institution is managed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, where drug offences are the most common type of crime (81,000) together with public order offences (65,000).

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